Kurdistan Observer/Editorial

Oct 12, 2005

     Through a monopoly of the media in Southern Kurdistan, the KDP and PUK have pushed across the message that the constitution they have agreed to in Iraq is good for Kurdistan.  Nothing could be further from the truth. 

     Whatever the motives of the Kurdish leaders, at each critical step in the negotiations they have given in to pressure and made concessions, first to Shiites, then to Sunnis, and throughout the process to the Americans.  Even after they agreed to a final draft in August whereby the Kurdish negotiators dropped such key points as the right of self-determination, these men acting on behalf of Southern Kurdistan continued to be sheepishly cajoled into accommodating the Baathists and genocidal Arab nationalists.  Most recently, they agreed to stressing the Arab nature of Iraq, the unity of Arab Iraq to encompass Southern Kurdistan, and going as far as placing in the constitution the idea that Arabic be used in Kurdistan.

      Unity and freedom for Arab Iraq.  These were the slogans of the Baathists nationalists.  They have managed to put them front and center in the constitution of the new Iraq.  So this is what the Kurdish leaders have bargained for with all the sacrifices of the brave and loyal peshmerga from years past?  They ask the sons and daughters of the September revolution and the disfigured victims of Halabja and their families to join in a new country where Baathist ideology rules supreme.  Add to that a mix of the backward constraints of the Arab religion, and you get a good idea of what the constitution is all about.  This is no time to celebrate a constitution made for Arab Iraq as a victory for the people of Kurdistan--as portrayed constantly on KTV and KurdSAT. 

      It is time for all those who voted for the option of independence last January to vote NO to Arab Iraq.  We urge all the people of Southern Kurdistan to send a strong message to our leaders to stop the negotiations in Baghdad by saying NO to Iraq.  Give them the backbone to return to Kurdistan and to dedicate their energies to more noble causes.